Page 30 of Riches Beyond Measure (Golden State Treasure #3)
Twenty-Two
They rose the next morning with Annie on a mission to get home. Josh wanted to ride ahead fast, straight for Cornerstone, in hopes of catching Hardy and Rombauer, while the rest of them rode to the dig site to pick up their blankets and other supplies and see if they could round up any more horses.
Annie wouldn’t hear of it. “No. We need to stay together. I don’t like the idea of dividing up into smaller groups.
We have to ride past that dig site anyway, and I too want to look around the area, see if they took everything with them.
We’ll head to Cornerstone from there, then on to the Two Harts. ”
They all nodded in agreement, deciding it best to stick together. As they set out, riding double, Cord was sitting behind her with his arm around her waist, his other hand gripping the reins.
Annie thought of their life ahead, and something occurred to her. “We’ve talked only a little about my late husband and how I was widowed.”
Cord’s arm at her waist tightened slightly. “I’m sorry you had such a terrible thing happen, Annie.”
She patted his strong arm. “Have I mentioned that I own a ranch?”
“No. You told me that you and your husband lived on a ranch, but—”
“Well, it’s not far from the Two Harts. When our land was stolen and Todd killed, those who did all that also burned down our house. I got the land back, of course. There’s a bunkhouse still standing, and Zane and Josh run the place for me. But I haven’t been back there since losing Todd.”
“Not even once?”
“No, Cord, not once. You said you’d like to be a rancher.
Well, how about over there? We call it Lane Valley.
The LV brand. But since Todd died, I’ve abandoned that brand.
Now all my cattle are branded with the Two Harts brand.
But the ranch is mine ... I mean ours .
” Annie had to remind herself that she and Cord were married and shared everything now.
“I-I don’t know what to say,” said Cord.
Annie gave a little shrug. Their horse walked along quietly, the land too uneven to go much faster. There was no trail to be seen. Josh and Tilda rode ahead of them, leading the way.
“There was just no reason to go back there,” she added, “but now I have a reason.”
Cord nodded. “I’d sure like to see the place. We wouldn’t need to live on the ranch if that’d be too upsetting for you.”
“How about we ride over there together, and I’ll see how it feels? Of course, if we did decide to live on the ranch, we’d have to build ourselves a house. The other one’s in ruins, ashes mostly. But staying there in a new house shouldn’t bother me overly.”
“Let’s do that,” Cord agreed.
“While I’m being forthright with you about the ranch property, I should also mention the fact that I sued Horace Benteen, the man who’d ordered my husband’s death because he wanted our land.
He was a powerful man who didn’t think the law applied to him, but he lost the suit and is now in prison, along with his son and his hired men.
They’re all a bunch of outlaws. Besides having Todd killed, Benteen had intentions to marry Michelle whether she liked it or not.
As it turned out, the man was very wealthy.
By the time Michelle’s lawyer was done with him, I owned his fortune and his ranch, too.
And Benteen’s got a nice house on the property not far from the Two Harts. We could live there if you prefer.”
Cord leaned forward in the saddle enough that she could see his furrowed brow. “Just how rich are you, Annie?”
She gave a little laugh. “I don’t give it much thought honestly. Oh, and I’m one-quarter owner of the Two Harts. I haven’t paid much mind to my actual financial worth, but I’d say I’m— we’re —quite rich.”
“You know I’ve got a bit of money myself. I’ve been scrimping and saving to buy land, and I’ve never spent it. What would you think of having Grandpa Westbrook, my ma, and my grandparents Rivers come live with us?”
Annie had lived with Mayhew Westbrook off and on for the last year. He loved Caroline. “Can I meet your other grandparents and your ma before I decide?”
Cord smiled. “I reckon you had better. Grandma and Grandpa Rivers are settled on eighty acres just south of Sacramento. I’m not sure if they’d care for the idea of moving.”
“Either way, let’s not rush into anything.”
“That’s wise,” Cord said as he hugged her around her middle.
Then Josh hollered back, “I found a trail. Let’s pick up our pace.”
Annie loved her Hart family, and she’d been content living on their ranch. She’d worked hard and made herself useful. But she thought she might finally be ready to go back home.
“Let’s pull up here to eat and look around a bit,” Josh said. “See if Hardy and that other fella left the bedrolls behind.”
Cord said to Annie, “I can’t believe how long we were underground.” He swung down from the saddle, then reached up to help his wife to the ground. A deep thrill passed through him every time he thought of being married to such a fine woman.
Josh went over and checked the trail that led to Cornerstone. “Looks to me like they took four horses. The four were pulling a travois.”
“That had to be slow going,” Tilda said.
“We figured we’d need all six horses pulling travois,” said Cord, “to get all the artifacts home. With only four horses, those things would’ve been stacked real high.”
A piercing whinny made Cord jump. Then a pair of whinnies not that far off answered back.
“Adding two more horses to this group oughta speed things up.” Josh walked toward the whinnies, calling quietly to the horses.
“We’ve got a wagon we left in Cornerstone.
Ellie rode on it until the trail became too narrow.
” Between the earthquake and being abandoned for days, the horses were a bit skittish.
Having two riders per horse had slowed them down some, and Josh had said the load was too much for the horses to make good time.
An aftershock rocked the ground. They’d been feeling mild quakes all day.
That was when Cord’s eyes landed on a caved-in stretch of land much like the crack that had swallowed their chuck wagon.
And it was right under the hanging shield.
Cord’s eyes narrowed as he walked toward the rupture in the earth.
“What’s this?” He stared down into the crack, which had cleaved the ground twenty or thirty feet deep. “It’s a ... a ship.” Tilda stood beside him, looking down, bewildered by what they saw. Josh had gone after the horses, but the others were coming fast toward the rupture.
“Most of the wood has rotted away, but that...” Tilda stopped and pointed. “Is that a cannon? And I think I see part of a mast. There are iron beams and other pieces of what used to be a ship. This must be where it went aground after the river dried up in the quake. Over there is a...”
Cord looked to where she was pointing. “A skeleton,” he finished for her.
Annie came up beside him and peered down into the crack.
It was indeed a skeleton. Stretched out flat on what was once his belly, arms outstretched as if he’d been crawling when death came.
The sight earned a long moment of silence.
At last, Cord said, “‘River of death’ for a fact.”
“We’ve come across too many dead folks while hunting treasure,” Brody said flatly.
“That skeleton is over three hundred years old,” Cord reminded him. “Whoever it was, he’d be dead now no matter what.”
“Yes, but not dead in the wilderness, far from home. It’s a risk explorers take, I suppose, and these men were explorers. Even so, a man oughta die surrounded by his loved ones, not like this.”
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Cord. “They sailed across the sea all that way, battling storms and whatnot, and then they finally arrive at land only to be dealt a huge earthquake, which ripped open the ground under the river they were on and swallowed up their ship with them in it.”
“Those graves we found with the armor,” Tilda said, “they had to be tied to this shipwreck. Which means not everyone died here.”
“Maybe they were thrown and scattered about when the ground ruptured,” Annie suggested. “Or maybe some of them survived, and they put together a scouting party to go hunting for food. Odd they’d wear their armor to do it, though.”
“Not if they’d spotted a grizzly bear or two along the riverbank as they sailed,” Tilda said. “Before the Lewis and Clark Expedition, no white man had seen a grizzly. One of those bears would have looked monstrous to them.”
“Or maybe it’s just how conquistadors dressed when out scouting.” Cord slowly walked the length of the rupture. “I wonder how many died here. Learning what might’ve happened is why we tried to do this right. It’s why we were being so careful.”
Annie crossed her arms, scowling, “And that’s why we contacted Hardy. He was supposed to study what we found and learn from it. Write it all up so that others might learn, too. Instead, greed overcame him, and he turned outlaw.”
“After what he and Rombauer did, they’ll have no part in this find,” Tilda said. She looked up from the ship to Josh. “Do we dare to get another of Michelle’s archeologists out here? Is this such a rich find, it’ll corrupt the conscience of every man who sees it?”
Josh gave her a wry smile. “It doesn’t seem to have driven us toward corruption.” His eyes slid over to Lock, who looked ready to jump into the crack and search the shipwreck for lost treasure. Josh laughed and added, “Most of us anyway.”
Cord shook his head. “It was right here all the time.” He pointed at the shield, hanging between two trees. “That other shield we found marked the graves of those sailors wearing armor. I figured this one had to mark something too, but we couldn’t find anything. Until today.”
“But we didn’t see why he marked this spot with the shield. He had to have seen something, but what?”
They all stared thoughtfully at the shield and with considerable wonder at the ship below.